Quotes & Sayings About Oedipus The King

The novelist is condemned to wander all his life. Homeless and blind like Oedipus he wanders until death. And so let us protect the novelist and adore him, with pity, honor, and love. — Roman Payne

In the last book of the Iliad (24.602ff.), Achilles urges Priam to eat: even Niobe, he says, after all her children had been slaughtered by the gods, took food eventually. Both Priam and Achilles have been bereaved of their dearest, and yet they gather themselves, and eat, and sleep, and go on living. (...) ...there are two early Lucanian vases with mourners by a grave stele with the same inscription "spoken" by the tomb: "On my back I grow mallow and thick-rooted asphodel: / in my bosom I hold Oedipus, son of Laios." Even Oedipus, the great king of Thebes, archetype of tragedy, experienced a catastrophic fall and descended into the deepest pit of horrors; yet ordinary plants grow on his tomb. We are not so different. — Oliver Taplin

What's the good of glory, magnificent renown, if in its flow it steams away to nothing? — Oedipus

Time alone can bring the just man to light - the criminal you can spot in just one short day. — Sophocles

The pains we inflict upon ourselves hurt most most of all. — Sophocles

The pain we inflict upon ourselves hurt most of all. — Sophocles

King as thou art, free speech at least is mine. To make reply; in this I am thy peer. — Sophocles